Alaskan Moon

We have seen this welcome sight a number of times over the past few nights.

Winter or Spring?

My favorite framing tree and his buddy wrap their branches around this mountain.

Castle Mountain up close and personal.

Chichagof Pass from a muskeg on the trail.

Blueberry blossoms!

The rufous hummingbirds (this one is a male) have been enjoying our feeders almost as much as the cats have been enjoying the feeders being right next to the window.

Woke up at 3:40am to go hiking before work. Should have got up about 20 minutes earlier and I would have been on top of the ridge at the first morning light. Still had a pretty good view of the sunrise. And if you were wondering, I didn't make it to work until 8:30am. Not too bad.

I'll let you decide what this looks like.

North Wrangell High Country Shelter... comes with a free view!

Diverse shots

I thought this photo was quite interesting. These junkos were moving all over the place and right after I focused on one and tried to snap a picture it moved and the auto-focus started focusing on another point. At least that is what I think happened. Cool effect in my opinion.

These mountains looked real nice with the last of the evening light on them. After we came home I was looking at the pictures Christina took, and I realized what a unique appearance these mountains have.

Berg mountain with the same effect.

The migration is underway. From robins to sandhill cranes and to these guys. They were flying too high for me to identify them.

Woronkofski Welcome

On clear mornings Woronkofski Island welcomes the sun with blazing pink and then orange splendor. Today the clear skies revealed something else. A number of avalanches have slid down the steeper slopes in search of the sea.

This is the ridge extending west of Marsha Peak where Nathan and I went goat hunting.

A wonderful way to spend the day in the swealtering spring heat.

 

For the Birds

Yesterday we hung up the hummingbird feeder. Shadow was pleased. Hummingbirds are her favorites. She only wishes they were flying around in the house.

An eagle as seen from our deck.

Itchy shin? Or perhaps he is fixing his landing gear.

 

Creatures

Tigger in his typical position... zonked out.

Our very own inquisitive Shadow.

Small shell

 

Mountains

Castle Mountain in a cloud.

The top of Woronkofski with a 400 mm zoom lens. Pretty neat.

The top of Woronkofoski again but this time cropped and in a black and white to try to highlight rib like drifts along the top of the ridge.

 

Colors of the Rainbow

Christina thought it would be fun to try to get shots of all the colors of the rainbow at the beach. Not all of them are included but here are a few. This was my attempt at green.

Yellow.

Orange.

Another orange.

 

Evening

The setting sun over Vank or Sokolof Island.

After the sunset.

Castle Mountain taken from Petroglyph Beach.

Paul (I assume) on final into Wrangell in his aptly named Cessna 172. The N number? N172PV. The Wilks Range is in the background. That's what you get to look at on a clear day when flying between Wrangell and Petersburg.

 

Birds

We recently bought a new lens, a 100-400mm zoom which makes taking pictures of critters and mountains up close possible with less stalking involved.

Couldn't quite make out what these were.

An inquisitive gull.

Harlequin ducks. I had never seen these before we moved to Alaska and I think they are the coolest duck around here.

 

The Quest for Bessie

The following series of pictures were taken on a trip I took with four other guys and one energetic dog March 31st and April 1st. We left Shoemaker Harbor at 6:50am and made camp at about noon. Which was pretty good time. We hiked to a little over 3200' before deciding that continuing on the last couple steep slopes with our gear could be foolish. The trip was great regardless.

Through the woods.

Across the bridge. Bob steps carefully across the spot where one of us had broken through and almost fallen. Sometimes handrails are awfully nice.

Scott is breaking trail with his faithful friend following closely behind him.

Four of the hikers crossing a muskeg.